See the bandwagon–jump, jump

With Book Expo America looming (more on that later, probably tomorrow) my geek self kicked in and I went to the website and started scrolling through all the authors who are scheduled to sign autographs for the paying insider masses. Imagine my surprise when I came across the name of Elsa Klensch. OK, I thought, she’s a fashionista, she’s writing about the fashion industry in some form or another. Well, she is, but not exactly–for she, it seems, has decided she must try her hand at this whole crime writing thing.

Now you must understand, Elsa was an unconscious influence on my young life, when I spent far too many hours watching CNN Headline News to the point where Ted Turner probably owned a piece of my brain. The anchorman (or woman, especially if it was Lynne Russell) would cue the sound clip and lo and behold, there was Elsa’s one-of-a-kind voice (what the hell kind of accent does she have, anyway?) talking about the latest craze in fashion. Even at the age of eleven, twelve, thirteen, I knew this to be vapid and silly. But still, I watched. Was it Elsa’s hypnotic speech patterns, her dragon-lady steely gaze? To this day, I am not sure. But when she left CNN, a (very) small part of me got very sad. Of course, CNN will never return to the “glory days” of the early 90s, but I do wonder if, in small part, its decline could be traced to Klensch jumping ship.

So now she thinks she can write a mystery. Naturally, “Live at 10:00, Dead at 10:15” is set in the fashion world. The protagonist is one Sonia Iverson, a television fashion journalist. So she’s writing what she knows, always a safe bet. I guess when the book hits stores in September, we’ll see if she actually succeeds. Lord knows I’m certainly curious.